


What Extra Pineapples and Anchovies Bring (Darcyland Exquisite Corpse)

by bloomsoftly, CatrinaSL, Dragongoddess13, Dresupi, phoenix_173, sara47q, SerialObsessor (ibelieveinturtles), thestanceyg, Zephrbabe



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Absurd, Anti-Pineapple Pizza, Baking, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack, Darcy Lewis's Taser, F/M, Gen, Other, Pizza, Pure Crack, Round Robin, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, Self-rescuing damsel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12596072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloomsoftly/pseuds/bloomsoftly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatrinaSL/pseuds/CatrinaSL, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragongoddess13/pseuds/Dragongoddess13, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenix_173/pseuds/phoenix_173, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara47q/pseuds/sara47q, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibelieveinturtles/pseuds/SerialObsessor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestanceyg/pseuds/thestanceyg, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephrbabe/pseuds/Zephrbabe
Summary: Darcy expects a pizza, with extra pineapple and anchovies. That is not what she gets.





	What Extra Pineapples and Anchovies Bring (Darcyland Exquisite Corpse)

**Author's Note:**

> [Exquisite corpse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse), also known as **exquisite cadaver** (from the original French term cadavre exquis) or **rotating corpse** , is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun", as in "The green duck sweetly sang the dreadful dirge") or **by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed**.
> 
> Nine Darcyland authors enter. No one leaves.
> 
> [Originally posted on tumblr.](http://thestanceyg.tumblr.com/post/166554346971/exquisite-corpse)
> 
> The prompt:  
> 
> 
> Transition sentences (when the story was passed from one author to another) are in bold.

Some days are just lovely: the crisp autumn breeze stirring leaves as they fall, watching pedestrians traipse about in their jewel-toned scarves and jackets and boots, bottomless pumpkin spice lattes. And other days... well.

Other days you get shot at for ordering a pizza.

Darcy Lewis, erstwhile science minion-turned-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, fired back from behind an overturned table and cursed Clint Barton's terrible taste in toppings and pizza parlors. The StarkPhone in her sweaty hand went to voicemail.

“Barton! Was this a fucking test! If this turns out to be a test, I will not only bedazzle all your bows, I will never buy you pizza again!” Darcy mashed the end call button with her thumb, and dialled the first guy she knew would be able to help.

“Branson and Branson Law Offices, how may I direct your call?”

“Cameron, it's Agent Darcy Lewis, Tango-057455-Bravo. Barton sent me to this pizza place and I said the wrong thing or something, and now I'm in a firefight—” Darcy let off another few rounds, and definitely winged one of the shooters “—and I need backup.”

“Oh—oh, uh, okay, I've got your location,” Klein said, voice evening out from his surprise. She couldn't hear over the shouting and gunfire, but she knew Cameron was tapping away at his keyboard. He'd have backup here lickety-split.

“Okay, uh, Agent Lewis? I've got backup on the way.”

“Thank Thor and his shiny beard,” Darcy huffed, ejecting her empty clip. “How soon?”

**“It'll only be a few minutes. Captain America was in the vicinity.”**

“Yeah? Well I don't think we've got a few minutes,” Darcy said, turning around to peer through the nearest window. “Can you hear that?”

Cameron huffed indifferently. “I don't hear anythi—” and the building across the road exploded.

“That's it, I'm out of here!” Darcy yelled, diving for cover against a nearby wall. “This is _not_  what I signed up for!”

She risked a quick look around as there was another explosion, and the floor disappeared from beneath her. She dropped into the hole, hitting her head as she flailed for something to hold onto, and the world went dark.

When she woke up, she could still hear explosions above her, as well as what sounded like gunfire. The hole she'd fallen through was mostly blocked by debris, but there was just enough light seeping through for her to see that she was alone. And half buried beneath chunks of plaster and a short timber beam. She gave the beam an experimental push and when it moved easily, she only needed a couple of good shoves to free herself.

She dusted herself off, examined herself for injuries—a few scrapes and bruises, but nothing to worry about—and then cheered quietly to herself when she spied her phone lying a short distance away.

“Dammit. No reception. Where on earth am I?” she muttered. “HELLO? IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?”

She waited until the dull echoes died away, but there was no response.

“Okay, then. Guess I'll have to rescue myself for now.”

She flicked her phone's flashlight on to get a better look at the room she'd landed in. Small, old, and damp, with a submarine-style door barely tall enough for her to pass through at one end. She picked her way carefully across the rubble from the fall, and pulled experimentally at the wheel on the door until it moved. After several minutes of tugging and cursing, the heavy door opened with an unearthly screech.

The long narrow room on the other side was lined with ancient red brick, stretching off into the gloom. Water dripped slowly down the walls, gathering in puddles on the floor.

“Okay—this isn't giving off creepy monster vibes at all.” She set off down the tunnel, glancing behind her every so often. It wasn't as long as it pretended to be, and before too long she came to a t-junction.

“Really? You can't just lead me straight to an exit?” Darcy sighed. Both directions looked the same at first glance, but a closer inspection revealed a trail of... “Is that slime?”

She crouched down for a closer look, and then almost jumped out of her skin when something moved in the shallow puddle.

She chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip as she peered down the tunnel. “To slime? Or not to slime?” she wondered. “And how will they know which way I went if they come looking for me?”

She idly poked at a crumbly looking brick, jumping back in surprise when a small chunk broke off and tumbled into the slimy water. The slime began to glow.

“Huh. Slime it is.”

Darcy continued to follow the trail of slime, turning frequently to check the luminescent trail she was leaving behind her.

She trudged and plodded and trekked along the curve—which had been revealed by the trail of glowing slime—of the never ending corridor until eventually she came to another door.

This door was not old and rusted. This door was made of some sort of silver metal, gleaming dully in the torchlight. It had a wheel right in the middle.

On a whim, Darcy turned off her phone's light, closed her eyes for a minute to help them adjust, and then looked again. The glowing slime gave the door a sick, creepy appearance, but without the bright glow of her phone she could now see that there were faint traces of the luminescent slime on the wheel of the door. Traces in the shape of handprints.

“Well, you've come this far,” she told herself. She pocketed her phone, wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans, and carefully gripped the wheel, avoiding the existing handprints as best she could.

**The wheel turned smoothly and silently, and with a silent prayer to Thor, she pushed the door open and stepped through, not noticing that she was leaving a glowing trail of slime with every step she took.**

The door slammed ominously shut behind her, and the darkness closed in. "Right," she said aloud, her voice sounding less confident and way more sarcastic than she'd planned. "Glad I'm not afraid of the dark, or anything."

With her hand on the wall to her left, she headed down the hallway, unnerved by the absolute silence. Honestly, the slightly foreboding dripping sound she heard once every ten seconds or so was kind of comforting.

Soon, she reached a junction. The hallway ended, and another, perpendicular to the one she had been following, stretched out of sight to either side. Squinting, Darcy could see a sign, complete with arrows, to direct the unwary traveler. "DEATH" was apparently to the right, and to the left, the much less ominous "BUSINESS OFFICE."

Darcy frowned.

If it was pitch black, how could she read the signs?

"Okay, calm down," she told herself. "Maybe I spontaneously mutated dark vision." She  mashed her eyes shut to test the difference between having them open or closed. There was a definite change, and Darcy began to get excited about her future superhero career as The One That Could See In The Dark. She even brainstormed a few code names: "Optigirl!" got dismissed as not cool enough. "The Vision?" Taken. "The Piercer…” No; she didn't work at the jewelry kiosk at the mall anymore.

Despite the lack of an awesome superhero name, Darcy's powers did seem to be improving. The arrow on the wall directing... visitors? toward "DEATH" seemed to be dark red in color, and on closer inspection, proved to be the source of the dripping sound she had been hearing.

"That is unsettling af," she pronounced, stepping away from the sign before her apparently heightened senses showed her what the substance slowly but steadily raining from the ominous notice actually was.

She backed into the hallway she'd originally walked down, and discovered something. "Aw," she groused. "I'm not a superhero; I'm just standing in a pool of creepy glowing slime."

Darcy had never been more disappointed to be standing in a pool of creepy glowing slime in her life.

It was helpful, though, in distracting her from the looming "DEATH," so she leaned down to examine where it might be coming from. She didn't touch, but she did sniff. It didn't smell like anything. Well, at least nothing she'd expected creepy glowing slime to smell like.

There was a large amount of it around where she'd been loitering at the juncture of the hallways, and when she looked behind her, she could see her progress down the hall, and the door she'd left behind her.

Footprints. _Her_ footprints, glowing.

"What even is my life?" Darcy wondered, annoyed. She leaned against the wall and checked out the bottom of her shoe; had she _stepped_ in something?!

Nothing.

"Okay. 'Creepy Glowing Slime Feet' is not a cool superhero name," she said with a frown. "But there are probably some X-Men who've worked with less!"

**Darcy decided to ignore her creepy glowing slime footprints for the moment and instead drew in a fortifying breath, psyching herself up to take the left turn before trying the right; after all, a "BUSINESS OFFICE" couldn't be worse than the blood-dripping dire prophetic warnings of "DEATH," could it?**

"On second thought." Darcy muttered to herself as she stepped through the door. She didn't know what kind of business they did here but it certainly wasn't something she wanted to find out.

The office was arranged like any floor: cubicles throughout the bullpen and glassed in offices around the walls. If there just so happened to be case upon case of various weapons stacked on every available surface, well who was she to judge? There were floor to ceiling windows on the far side, and her saving grace.

"Yes." She hissed between her teeth making a beeline for the emergency exit in the far left corner. **She pushed the door open carefully and peeked into the stairwell. It seemed safe enough but if life had taught Darcy anything, it was that anything had the potential to be dangerous.**

Even though it was dark, Darcy decided to take her chances with the alley. She quickly darted behind the dumpster, but she tripped over someone already hiding there.  He let out an “oof!” but his quick reflexes allowed him to catch her before she hit the ground.

“I should have known you would be here," she said. “Mob nonsense and a pizza place has your name written all over it.”

“Hey!” he tried to sound indignant, but then just shrugged and pulled her behind him.

He looked her up and down as much as he could in the tight space. “You got your weapon on you, Taser Girl?”

“Clint, you know full well tasers are illegal in New York!” she hissed, trying to keep the noise down in case she had been followed. He just looked at her expectantly. “Fine,” she sighed, pulling it out of the ankle holster Natasha had insisted she wear.

“Okay.  Be ready, just in case. And try not to shoot me with it this time.”

“Don’t you want to call for backup first? Green Lantern? Black Widow? Aquaman?”

He just shook his head. “Darcy, I know you know full well that most of those are fictional.”

**“I do not know that. How would I know that? You know, before New Mexico, I didn’t believe in aliens or killer robots either. Why should these be fictional?” Her snort of disgust was tinged with a dry humor.**

“Okay,” Steve conceded, “But where are we gonna find boots small enough to fit this cat? And how are we gonna get them on the cat to begin with?”

“Steve, my sweet summer child,” Darcy responded, “Magic. Magic is the answer to any and everything since this nightmare of a day started. All I wanted was to pick up coffee for my scientist, but Clint had to go ruin that for everyone with his disgusting desire for fruit and fish on pizza. So now, it’s up to us. I’ll go find the boots, you keep that cat where it’s supposed to be. We’ll worry about the rest when we come to it.”

Steve just shook his head and picked up the long haired three legged cat and sat on the couch.

**“Whaddaya say, Buck? Great British Bakeoff?”**

A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth, wreathing his expression in mischief. His eyes, though, sent a shiver coursing through her. Where the curve of his lips was light and teasing, his gaze was a molten blaze on hers.

“I don’t know, doll. I guess we could.” One shoulder lifted in an artless shrug, as he ducked his chin to peer at her through his lashes. It was all on purpose, tiny gestures expertly designed to catch her attention. Despite recognizing it for what it was—admiring it, even—Darcy’s breath caught in her throat and her heart pounded in her chest. All of a sudden she felt very outclassed in the flirting department. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” she prompted after a moment, filling the silence when he didn’t finish the thought.

The smirk was back in full force, and his eyelid dropped in a slow wink.

“Unless you’re scared of getting shown up in the kitchen by an old man.”

Darcy straightened up and took a step backward—when had they gotten so close, anyway?—to shove the sleeves of her sweater up over her elbows. Barnes was gorgeous and all, with that scruff and those eyes and that body and pretty much everything else about him, but no one came between her and her pastries. No one.

Some of her determination must’ve shown on her face, because he blinked slowly and leaned away. A wary expression flickered across his face, but it was already too late.

In the blink of an eye, her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. With a sharp smile and fire in her eyes, she leaned in. Ignoring the scent of his cologne—any other time, she’d be tempted to rub up against him and curl up into the welcoming heat of his body—she rose to her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

“You’re on, Bucky. Hope you’re not a sore loser.” She was close enough that her breath ghosted over his ear as she spoke, close enough to catch the faint shudder that ran through his body at her proximity. Well, wasn’t that interesting.

When she pulled back, his expression was smooth and even except for a faint spot of color high on his cheekbones. The smirk was all hers, now, and it flirted at the edge of her lips. There were worse things than knowing she could affect a man like Bucky.

His eyes were warm and heated on hers, pupils dilated with restrained want. A genuine smile pulled at his mouth, pleased that she gave as good as she got.

“Care to make a wager, doll?” he asked. His eyes sparkled, like he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the dare.

He was right.

“A bet, Bucky? This gets more and more interesting,” she purred, a lioness ready to pounce on her prey. **His throat bobbed, and she followed the motion before glancing up to meet his gaze. “What are your terms?”**

He chuckled. “That was quick, I expected to have to convince you a little more…”  

Darcy shrugged.  “To be fair, I was already on board before you asked me.  But you seemed like you had a whole… _thing_ to get through.”  

Pietro blushed before running his hand through his hair.  “I honestly thought you hated the idea of being my undercover partner the first time, so I didn’t really expect you to _want_ to do it a second time. Or possibly third, fourth… what have you. I didn’t expect you to want to continue this… _professional_ relationship.”  

“What would give you that idea?” she asked, tilting her head slightly. “Could it possibly be the fact that you circled like a hawk whenever I was talking to contacts at the party?  Or maybe the fact that you got handsy in the elevator when I specifically said not to…”  

“Hey!  That was to protect you from the _needle_ that the mob boss was trying to stick you with.  He stuck me instead and that shit doesn’t work on me, so we were fine.”  

“You _blew_ our cover.”  

“I _saved_ your life.”

“Semantics,” she replied, smirking haughtily.  

“So if I’m a terrible partner, why are you agreeing?”  

“You’re not a terrible partner.  You’re a terrible agent.  You’re a fantastic partner, couldn’t ask for a better one.”  

“Oh…” he trailed off, blushing again.  It was pretty adorable, if she did say so herself.  There was just one more thing to get squared away.

She coughed. “I just need to ask you one more thing, Piet. And you can’t laugh when I ask you this.”  

“What?”  

“Are you going to be able to do this without falling in love with me?”  

His eyebrows went up, the corners of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t laugh.  “I think I can manage.”  

**Smiling, Darcy stuck her hand out.  “It’s a deal, then.  Go tell Coulson to draw up the paperwork. I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership.  I look forward to working with you exclusively, Agent Maximoff.”**  

As soon as he took her hand, darkness surrounded Darcy. She cried out for him, for Bucky, for Steve, for Clint, hell, even for Cameron, but no one answered. She was in complete and utter darkness.

Darcy waited.

Eventually, she thought she could hear a sound other than the beating of her own heart. It was... beeping?

It got louder, and closer, and the darkness became somehow less.

She could hear voices. People talking. Where was she? And why couldn't she see them?

"Wake up, Agent Lewis," someone suggested.

Darcy pried open her eyes to see Cameron looking down at her. "It's you," she realized.

"Of course, Agent Lewis," Cameron began, but was interrupted.

"Anybody home?" came a voice from the doorway. Darcy turned to see that it was Pietro. "I just stopped by because I heard the little girl got caught in the big—well! She seems all right now." He beamed a smile at her, and Darcy shrank back a little, remembering the smile he'd just given her moments before.

"Yes, she got quite a bump on the head," Cameron replied. "We thought for a minute there she was going to leave us, but the doctor says she only has a mild concussion and shouldn't even be suffering any memory loss."

Cameron stepped back, and a trio of her friends crowded in.

"Remember me? Your old pal Buck?" he said with a wink.

"And me?" chimed Steve.

"You couldn't forget my face, could ya, Darce?" Clint asked.

"I think I had a dream," Darcy admitted, and pointed at each of her friends in turn. "You, and you, and you..." She turned to gesture at Pietro. "And  _you_ were there!"

"I've never had concussion dreams; have you?" Clint asked Bucky, who shook his head.

Darcy whacked Clint on the arm. "Hey! If it weren't for you and your stupid pizza, none of this would have happened!"

"Sure," Clint said, "but haven't you been complaining about needing some time off?"

"I didn't mean  _medical leave_ ," Darcy scolded.

"Okay, but... would you rather it hadn't happened at all?"

Darcy looked over at Pietro, who was lounging against the door frame, then back to Bucky, who was smiling beside her.

"No," she said. "I guess not."

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment to tell us how much you liked the fic, how trippy you thought it was, or how it was almost exactly like that dream you had that one time.
> 
> Find us all on tumblr so you can give us high fives:  
> [Zephrbabe](http://zephrbabe.tumblr.com)  
> [SerialObsessor (ibelieveinturtles)](http://ibelieveinturtles.tumblr.com)  
> [CatrinaSL](http://catrinasl.tumblr.com)  
> [Dragongoddess13](http://dragongoddess13.tumblr.com)  
> [sara47q](http://sarastark.tumblr.com)  
> [phoenix_173](http://phoenix-173.tumblr.com)  
> [bloomsoftly](http://bloomsoftly.tumblr.com)  
> [dresupi](http://dresupi.tumblr.com)  
> and our steadfast organizer [thestanceyg](http://thestanceyg.tumblr.com)!


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